Increasing Collaboration Between Colleagues as a Physician Scheduler

Studies show that effective communication between healthcare teams and patients is significant to the overall health of the patient. But what about communication among providers?

Each patient interacts with multiple medical professionals during their treatment, and it is essential that your entire team of doctors, nurses, and administrators are on the same page. As a physician scheduler, aim to increase collaboration between your colleagues so that – regardless of the number of staff available to treat patients – your group can provide the highest quality of care.

Let’s take a look at how you can encourage collaboration within your team.

Listen to your colleagues

Scheduling is only one of your jobs as a physician, and it’s likely your department has seen its share of problems when trying to make a fair schedule. Nurses may have trouble identifying who is the on-call physician, your group’s vacation requests get lost in emails, and it’s difficult for your staff to trade shifts. It can be hard to listen to what your colleagues need if there are numerous ways for them to submit requests or ask for time off.

In order to help your team work more effectively, be forthcoming about common issues that seem to plague your staff. In a meeting, ask for their input and encourage them to share suggestions. When you switch to a digital scheduling system, ask for ideas on which custom rules or additional changes can be made to make the schedule even better.

Be methodical in your changes

Are you spending a lot of time interacting with partners who are frustrated with the schedule? Are team members frustrated with unfair or biased schedules or schedules that seem to take too long to put together? Are you spending a lot of time on the schedule and still having to mediate conflicts with requested days off?

By addressing each of these scheduling concerns carefully, you’ll be able to evaluate how to overcome the stress of outdated scheduling methods. Your team’s collaboration, satisfaction, and morale could improve greatly with smart changes and a scheduling software update.

Train staff to use the software

Before you implement a scheduling software with your group, you’ll need to inform the staff of these changes. Simply presenting the software’s benefits to your staff in one quick meeting won’t be enough.

Great digital scheduling includes customization, scalability, and training. Shift Admin’s innovative algorithm creates optimized schedules and is backed by a first-class customer support team. With each new question on the system’s capabilities, your colleagues will know more about managing and viewing the schedule with ease. And of course, they’ll wonder how they functioned before using Shift Admin.

Rely on the software

If you’ve implemented a scheduling software to solve all of these issues, you’re saving precious time and increasing your ability to focus on your other roles. Before Shift Admin, how many hours did you spend mediating between a provider that requested off via email and one who delivered a handwritten request?

Shift Admin eliminates that part of your job. Providers and other staff members can request changes and communicate within our built-in messaging system. Don’t fall back into the temptation of being the middleman scheduler, but instead encourage your group to rely on the software –that's Shift Admin's job!

Strong communication leads to greater satisfaction and overall happiness. Collaboration amongst your colleagues increases efficiency and ensures better quality of care for your patients. How will you make changes to improve communication and collaboration amongst your colleagues this week?

Are you ready to see positive changes at your facility? Here’s how to get started as a physician scheduler: